


I know I still have places to go, but I'd rather just stay right here

by TheSpaceHairAndTheSpaceIdiot



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, and christmas fluff, post episode: the doctor the widow and the wardrobe, this is mostly smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 02:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13354872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceHairAndTheSpaceIdiot/pseuds/TheSpaceHairAndTheSpaceIdiot
Summary: Now that he had arrived at the little blue door and seen his old friends face-to-face, now that his secret about not being dead was no longer a secret (not that it had been for very long, it seemed), he was feeling quite beside himself with cheerfulness. Shaking his head to alleviate his slightly rambling thoughts, the Doctor started making his way after Amy and Rory before ducking into the dining room to see for himself that they had indeed set an extra place for him. In fact there were two extra places set. They hadn't mentioned anyone else coming for dinner, but then again, he'd only been inside the house for all of thirty seconds.





	I know I still have places to go, but I'd rather just stay right here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loving-the-stars-themselves (youandmeotp)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youandmeotp/gifts).



> This is my (late) gift to loving-the-stars-themselves for the River Song Secret Santa. Hope you all enjoy!  
> Thanks as always to Bree for motivating me to actually write and encouraging me through my frequent bouts of hating every word I write.  
> Song title from "Happy Christmas Day" by Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls

As he shut the door and turned around to follow his friends further into the house, the Doctor wiped the last traces of his happy, humany tears off his face, still slightly in awe of the emotions running through his chest that had produced them. The Doctor wasn't normally prone to tears, but when they did come about, it was always during his worst moments, moments of death and fear and sorrow. It had been so very long since he had cried from happiness that he wasn't entirely certain anymore that it had ever happened at all. 

His moments of pure, unadulterated happiness and joy became rarer as his long years progressed. However, now that he had arrived at the little blue door and seen his old friends face-to-face, now that his secret about not being dead was no longer a secret (not that it had been for very long, it seemed), he was feeling quite beside himself with cheerfulness.

Shaking his head to alleviate his slightly rambling thoughts, the Doctor started making his way after Amy and Rory before ducking into the dining room to see for himself that they had indeed set an extra place for him. In fact there were _two_ extra places set. They hadn't mentioned anyone else coming for dinner, but then again, he'd only been inside the house for all of thirty seconds. Thinking to himself, he allowed his feet to take him into the kitchen, where the smell of Christmas dinner invaded his senses. Rory was at the counter, mixing something in a large bowl and Amy had seated herself at the table, a bag of potatoes and a heap of peelings in front of her.. 

As soon as he entered the room, they both looked up, twin looks of worry on their faces. "Where did you run off to? You only just got here, you can’t be running off again when you’ve barely gotten through the door," Amy said, a fine mixture of suspicion and worry coloring her voice.

"No need to panic, Pond, I was just taking a look around. It would be rude to come back from the dead and then leave immediately after, and I like to think rude went out the door with the last body," he said, talking himself into a slight ramble. "Is someone else coming to dinner?" The last part was said in a bit of a rush, without preamble or transition, his curiosity raising to the point his patience lost the battle for control.

Amy's interest in his sudden question seemed to have been piqued, but only for the slightest moment. After a second of staring at him with curiosity, she let her gaze drop back down to the task at hand. "No, it's just us this year. My parents and Rory's dad are all off visiting other relatives. You picked a good year to show up again. There's no one for you to shock or scandalize into a heart attack.

"I have never shocked someone into a heart attack!" the Doctor huffed indignantly. Honestly, one surprise entrance from the nothingness of inexistence and that's the reputation he's picked up?

"Somehow I find that hard to believe," Amy said, leveling him with a look of disapproval.

"Yeah, same, and that's not a theory I really feel like testing  on Christmas," Rory said sternly.

The Doctor opened his mouth to once again defend his honor and his track record of not killing his companions’ relatives, but before he could say a word, he heard the unmistakable sound of the front door opening. He stopped short, wondering if the person walking through the door was a friend or maybe some sort of Christmas burglar. One who robbed homes by way of walking through the open front doors of full and lively homes rather than breaking in to dark and deserted ones.

He didn't have to wait and wonder for long because mere seconds later, the Doctor felt surprise enough for him to give Amy's theory about shocking someone into a heart attack with a surprise entrance a bit more credence. "River? What are you doing here?" he asked, surprise flooding his body as he stared at the woman before him wrapped in a long coat and carrying grocery bags in her arms. He whirled around to wave an accusing finger at Amy. "You said no one else was coming!"

River laughed brightly, walking closer to set the two bags in her arms on the kitchen table. "Well, don't I feel welcome?"

Amy glared at him over her growing pile of potato peelings. "I didn't think it needed clarifying that when I said it was 'just us' that the 'us' included our daughter! Of course River would be here for Christmas!"

Rory merely shook his head and went back to his mixing. "You've been up in space too long, Doctor."

"Really, sweetie, I can leave if that would make you more comfortable," River said in obvious amusement as she started to unwrap herself from her coat, hanging it from the back of an unused chair as she leveled him with a challenge and a smirk on her lips.

It hadn't been nearly as long since their time in the aborted timeline and their impromptu pyramid wedding as it had been for Amy and Rory and the sight of his new wife was not one to which he had yet grown fully accustomed. He saw her regularly, his promise of keeping her nights occupied one which he was determined to fulfill as often as possible, but throw in the shock and the parents and the holiday and the official returning from the dead, and he was flummoxed, off-kilter. Her words took a few seconds to filter into his brain and when they did, he rushed to correct her.

"No! No no no no! Absolutely not! I just wasn't expecting you is all. Which I should have been. Obviously. But I wasn't and you walked in and you were all… you know… here and- and- and- I just - Happy Christmas!

River seemed to be in the happiest of moods tonight and she was obviously finding his current bumbling most amusing because her smile spread further across her face and he swore it was becoming a literal source of light in the room. She walked the few steps separating them and leaned in close. Her cheeks were red from the cold and there were tiny flecks of snow settled into her curls. He thought she was going to give him a proper kiss, but instead, she turned at the last second and pressed her lips to his cheek, lingering a touch longer than one normally would with such an action.

He relished the feeling of her so near, of her lips on his skin. It always filled him with a euphoric glee, ever since that first kiss outside her prison cell. It had been centuries since that moment and yet, he still sometimes struggled with what to do with his hands. Even with such chaste a kiss as this, the surprise nature of this whole encounter was throwing him off his game.

"Happy Christmas, Doctor," she said warmly, leaning back out and flashing that smile of hers at him again. He was left in a near stupor until he heard the telltale groan coming from Rory's direction.

"Is this something we're going to have to get used to now?" he grumbled loud enough for everyone to hear. "If you're going to follow through on the whole 'being married to our daughter' thing, can we at least put a limit on the PDA, please?

The Doctor flushed red, head jerking around to take in the sight of Amy and Rory behind him. Rory had a look of discomfort and mild disgust on his face. Amy, obviously amused by her husband's dramatics, merely rolled her eyes, but he couldn't tell whether that was aimed at Rory or at he and River. Quite possibly both, he imagined.

River followed her mother's reaction and rolled her eyes, fondness and mirth sparkling through them. "Ignore him. He should be grateful I settled only for a kiss on the cheek. But I figured we can ease the poor dear into it before I snog you senseless under the mistletoe later."

The Doctor reddened even more at the thought of snogging in front of the Ponds. Rory gave a loud groan and shut his eyes tightly, presumably to ward off the mental image stoked by River's words. "Must you? I worked hard on this dinner. I really don't want to end up too sick to eat any of it."

"I'm with Rory on this one," Amy interjected, pointing a stern finger between the Doctor and River. "You kids keep it PG while in front of us. Or better yet, just stick to opposite sides of the room all together."

"Mother dear, as amusing as I find your rules, I think the poor Doctor is taking them quite seriously. I'd like to see his skin return to it's usual color sometime in the next century."

"My skin is a perfectly normal shade, thank you very much!" the Doctor protested hotly, even more embarrassed by having his embarrassment pointed out so publicly.

Ignoring him, Amy addressed River directly. "Who said anything about amusing? I'm dead serious, young lady! The thought of the two of you ending up together might have been something I fully supported back before we found out who you were, but now the thought of that face of his and all those gangly limbs flailing at his sides like that- eugh!" She gave a full body shudder before focusing on her peeling again.

The Doctor opened his mouth to defend himself again when he was rudely interrupted by the chiming of the doorbell. All four heads went to the direction of the front entranceway, and before he knew what was happening, Amy was out of her seat and lunging for the counter. "It's got to be the bloody carol singers! I knew we hadn't seen the last of them! Rory! River! Come on!"

She grabbed her water pistol from where she'd left it only minutes before and with a resigned and sighing Rory walking in her wake, she started her march toward the door.

River had a mischievous gleam in her eye when she called after them, "We'll just go fetch mine and be right there to help ward them off!"  And with that, she threw the Doctor a conspiratorial grin and grabbed his arm, dragging him from the room. He gave an initial yelp of protest but then allowed her to pull him along with little fight. Physically at least. Verbally, he wasn't going anywhere without a good ramble.

"Where are you taking me? River, you'll ruin my jacket! River, why are we going upstairs? What's so important that’s upstairs? River!"

"My God, you have a big mouth. Do you ever have the good sense to shut up?" she asked him, not even bothering to look back at him as she pulled him up the staircase. Taking her cue, he did exactly that. Down the hall, she continued to drag him until they had stopped in front of a closed door, which if he remembered correctly from when he'd gone and bought the house for Amy and Rory, was the smaller of the two bedrooms in the house. River shot him yet another grin and pushed the door open, pulling him in along behind her.

As soon as they were both over the threshold, she'd shut the door and pressed her back to it, leaning her weight against it and pulling him down into her by the lapels of his jacket. His lips met hers all too eagerly, even if he hadn't been fully expecting the maneuver. But he had a magnetic attraction to her; wherever she was, he would gladly follow, and wherever her lips lay in wait, his were eager to meet them. It was just his hands that were always the problem. But now, nestled in the privacy of the bedroom, his hands had no problem finding their natural resting spot on the curve of her hip. She was still chilled from her errand outside the house and it sent a tingle down his spine, a jolt of rejuvenated energy, and he kissed her all the more enthusiastically. But only for a few more seconds, because then he remembered exactly where they were and who was waiting for them just downstairs.

He reared back instantly, his breath catching in his throat as he looked down at the floor in a panic, as though he could see through it to see Amy and Rory's surely disapproving glares. Then the image of Amy's glare and the sound of screaming carolers being shot with a water pistol drifting up from the street below jerked his brain back into focus. A rather salient detail slipped back into place and he adopted a glare of his own.

"You ratted me out!"

That obviously wasn't the protest River had expected to hear. Her eyebrow rose and though her irritation at being interrupted was clear, so was her continued amusement. "I'm sorry?"

"Your parents! You told them I was still alive! You weren't supposed to do that!" he said sternly, taking his hand from her hip and wagging his finger at her.

River never lost her seductive smile as she put on the act of a full-body shiver. "Oh, I do love it you get all strict."

"What? River! I'm serious! Telling them might have had serious ramifications for-"

"For what exactly?" she countered easily. "It's not like they would _tell_ anyone! And if they did, who could they have told _here_ that would cause you any problems? Mrs. Betterly down the road with the six cats isn't going to come looking for you, I'm sure of it. Really, sweetie, you're coming awfully close to spoiling the mood."

"Mood? What mood? River, I am trying to talk to you about this. It was still reckless. You have no idea-"

His words stopped in his throat when he saw River reach behind her, without even looking, and turn the lock on the doorknob, a predatory glint in her eye. He took a cautious step back.

"River, what-?"

"Really, Doctor, it's Christmas. Can't you stop overthinking things for just one night and enjoy yourself?" She took a step toward him.

He felt the urge to gravitate toward her, but forced his feet to take a second step backward. "It’s just- just that we had a plan. You're in prison for killing me. It all would have been for nothing if it ends up coming out that I'm not."

"Well then, you'll be happy to know that I'm no longer in prison," she said slyly, stepping once more into his personal space, a nonchalant shrug of her shoulder playfully undercutting the importance of what she said.

"What? Do you mean right in this moment, because obviously you escape all-"

"I haven't escaped this time," River said triumphantly. "I walked right out the front door, with no sirens alerting anyone to anything. I got a nice apology gift basket from the warden on my way out. It was quite boring without all the commotion, to be quite honest. I came here almost straight away."

He was stunned. Yes, he knew River eventually earned her pardon and went on to a Stormcage-free life, but it was exceedingly rare that he ran into a version of her from this period of her life. Whenever he did, it always put him in the unpleasant situation of remembering what this phase of her life would eventually lead her to. He shut his eyes tightly for the briefest of moments, willing away the dark thoughts of flesh-eating shadows and carnivorous books and the burning sting of those metal handcuffs he had tried and failed to break free from. It was Christmas. The first Christmas he was spending with his wife, however unintentional that turn of events may have been. He was recently returned from his self-imposed exile and spending a holiday with the family that had grown to mean so very much to him. And River had just told him that she had finally earned her long-fought-for pardon. Despite the dark demons lurking in his brain, that deserved celebration. He slowly allowed a delighted, slightly awed grin to slide across his face.

"You finally earned your pardon? What put you over the edge? The Byzantium?" he asked eagerly, his fingers twitching to reach for her again, but somehow able to control themselves.

"Not exactly. But I do believe the details of that would fall under 'spoilers'."  Her voice dripped with relish. She was enjoying toying with him, having good news to share and a better mood with which to entice him. She was newly free from her self-regulated captivity, free from the binding solitude she took on in order to keep him safe, free from the lifetime of control at the hands of those looking to keep her subdued and leashed. She had the entire universe at her fingertips, and yet this is where she chooses to be. With her parents on Christmas Day. With him. The privilege of being one of the few with whom she shared her earliest days of freedom with nearly took his breath away.

"What will you do now?" He knew the answer to the question, knew that she would go back to the university where she earned her degrees and make a name for herself teaching the next generation of  students all there was to know about digging through mountains of dusty artifacts. But he was curious as to whether she knew that yet, or if she'd do something else first, if she'd maybe be up for a bit of traveling the stars with him. To have a version of River not always rushing back to her prison cell would be the best Christmas gif imaginable.

"Between you and me, a little birdy let slip not very long ago that I would become a professor one day," she told him, coming one more step even closer, her hands coming up to rest on his chest as she gazed up at him, a world of possibilities in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have thought it my style as such, but the more I think about it, the more I’m coming around to the idea. The whole naughty professor thing could be fun, don’t you think?" she asked evilly, causing the Doctor’s mind to race to all the delightfully sinful ways they could make that particular fantasy come to light. He’d yet to ever visit River during her teaching years, too afraid of both spoilers and the pain of seeing her edging closer to her inevitable ending, but he vowed to do so quite soon. “So I imagine I'll be looking into getting that going soon. But I think I want to enjoy myself for a little while. See where the universe takes me for a bit."

"You know, if you're looking to travel the universe a bit, you've got a husband with a time machine. Much more comfortable means of travel than that vortex manipulator of yours."

"Is that an offer, my love?" Her voice was soft, her words conveying a question but in reality answering his own unspoken one.

"You bet it is," he breathed, hopes of getting extended time with her in a lifetime where their time together was often measured in hours rather than days or weeks or months filling him with a warm giddiness. Christmas miracles, indeed.

River snaked her arms up his chest to wrap around his neck, and for a second time, pulled him down into a kiss. Her lips were soft and pliant and he allowed his fingers to stop finally ignoring their instincts as they reached out for her, settling on her waist. The kiss was slow and methodical, gentle, but at the same time eager to have the other near. When the Doctor showed up at Amy and Rory's door, he hadn't even thought about the possibility of River being there too, but now that she was, it was proving to be the highlight of the trip.

The Doctor was enjoying the moment immensely but was preparing himself for the approaching time where they would end the kiss and join her parents downstairs again. The shouts from the street had ended and Amy and Rory would surely be noticing their absence. He definitely didn't want them jumping to any conclusions about where they were and what they were up to. When River's kiss pulled back from his lips, he thought the moment over and gave a small sigh of equal parts contentment and regret, which changed pitch midway through and became a tiny moan now that she had switched to kissing his neck.

"River," he said with a reluctant groan, gently pushing her back just a few inches, "we have to get back downstairs. Your parents-"

His words froze on his lips, as he watched River start to undo her shirt, plucking each button from its hole slowly, meticulously, pulling the edges of her button-down apart just another inch at a time as she went. During the several seconds his tongue sat frozen in his mouth, River managed to undo all of her buttons and slide the blouse from her shoulders, letting it drop to the ground behind her, unconcerned.

He stood staring at her in her bra for a second. Then two. It was a black, lacy sort of thing that left little to the imagination and this really wasn't even a little bit fair. He cleared his throat, forcing the muscles inside to work once more. "River, we can't possibly…"

But she paid him no mind, reaching out and running her fingers delicately down the middle of his shirt, fiddling with the bottommost button that wasn't tucked into his trousers. He thought her really quite evil because the position of that button was really far, far too close to another area of his body that could sense the nearness of her fingers and craved their touch.

"Sweetie, I have seen you do a million and one impossible things over the years. Are you going to tell me that sleeping with me in my parents' house is the one thing you can't deliver on?"

He licked his lips, finding it hard to choose his words carefully with the rush of heat creeping up his spine. "It's- it's not a question of ability! It's a question of sanity! Of morality! Your parents are _right downstairs_! And it's not like they don't know we're up here by now! How are we supposed to go back down there and face them after- after- just… _after_!"

He was starting to feel a tiny bit hysterical, panicked at the thoughts racing through his mind. But his protests had no effect of swaying River from her course of action. "Sweetie, it's Christmas and I'm fresh out of prison. You've only just returned from the dead. We're safely behind a locked door, we still have a good half an hour before dinner is ready, and I'm half naked in front of you." Her fingers finished unbuttoning his shirt and resorted to trailing teasingly back down his chest, scratching her nails lightly across his skin and causing him to shiver. "You can't tell me you aren't the least bit interested in taking me to bed and having your wicked way with me?"

A flush continued to rise up his body, but this time it wasn't because of embarrassment. His head turned instinctively to look behind him at the bed laying in wait barely a few steps away. He turned back to look at River. "I didn't say that."

"Really, now? Because you're protesting my advances an awful lot for someone who isn't saying that," she said teasingly. Her hand reached the waistline of his trousers and she slipped the tips of her fingers inside, tugging him closer to her invitingly.

And so he gave in, all his hesitance and protestations lost in a haze of heat and lust and love of the woman standing before him. He swooped in willingly, this time framing her face between his hands and kissing her for all he was worth. His mouth slanted over hers and he groaned, the sound escaping his mouth one of defeat, but not of dismay or regret, for how can one ever regret falling into the arms of River Song? If she wanted him to take her to bed, he wasn't a strong enough man to refuse the request for long.

River really was excellent at multi-tasking. As they continued to kiss, she continued her pursuit of undressing him, pulling his shirttails from his trousers, followed by the unraveling of his bow tie. She took a step forward, forcing him to take one in equal measure back. Then another. He reluctantly took his hands from her cheeks in order to allow her to push his shirt and jacket, together, from his shoulders, where they landed in a tangled heap on the floor behind him,. She made sure to angle the toss to the side a bit so that he wouldn't trip over them, which he thought showed rather good forethought on her part. But one more step back and his legs hit the edge of the bed, knocking him flat to the mattress, dragging River with him.

He swallowed River's fond laugh with another hungry kiss. Now that he'd given in, he couldn't waste another moment on something like laughing at his own clumsiness. He pushed himself into a sitting position and River followed suit, clambering eagerly into his lap, her knees on either side of his hips and her loosely flowing skirt riding _up, up, up_ and his hands couldn't help but follow it until they were cupping the twin globes of her bum, giving them simultaneous squeezes that made River wiggle deliciously against his growing hardness.

Her fingers fiddled between them, opening the button on his trousers and slipping her hand inside his pants. The electric touch of her fingers wrapping around him sent a burst of fireworks behind his eyes and he had to bite off a keening yelp that certainly would have carried further than he would have liked. River ducked her head down, kissing her way down his jaw and landing at the side of his neck, where she kissed softly with soothing shushes as she continued to work him over with her hand.

Before long, the Doctor gathered the strength to pull her hand away. As fabulous as her ministrations felt, it wasn't what he wanted. Or rather, it wasn't _all_ he wanted. He took her newly freed hand and raised it to his lips, kissing her knuckles tenderly. From her vantage point above him, she smiled down at him softly before pushing him gently down to the mattress. When she started to slide her bra straps down her shoulders, he took the opportunity to push himself onto his elbows, all the better able to see her as she bared herself to him. When she reached behind her back to undo the fastenings and then dropped the lacey garment to the floor behind her, the Doctor instantly reached up, and unable to properly reach her chest, settled for placing them back on her hips, stroking his fingers along the shapely lines of her waist.

Within moments, however, he'd lost what little patience he had left. He sat up abruptly took River by the arms, and pulled her down to the mattress with him, rolling them over so that he was raised above her, nestled securely between her spread legs. Obviously pleased with his maneuver, River hummed happily at him. "I knew that embarrassed schoolboy persona would melt away in good time."

He started to work his fingers around the waistline of her skirt, figuring out how to undo it and get her out of the blasted thing. "Only because you are a very, very bad girl," he said, motioning for her to lift her hips so he could drag the skirt down her legs. "Very naughty. We really shouldn't be doing this." He repeated the motion with her knickers, already soaked through and making his mouth water. With them gone, his wife was finally, blessedly, naked. He lowered himself to hover over her, covering her mouth with a desperate kiss. His hands wandered to cup her breasts, tweaking and twisting her nipples until they pebbled between his fingertips. He broke the kiss and his mouth followed his hands, sucking one pink bud between his lips.

River moaned above him and her leg reached up to pull him lower, forcing him to cover her more completely, rocking her hips into his stomach in search of more friction. "We shouldn't be doing this and yet you're doing it so wonderfully. But you really need to get those trousers off. We're running a little short on time, as you know. "

Oh, that he did. Their lack of time was always there at the forefront of his mind, a fact he was never able to fully forget, least of all now. She was out of prison, headed towards her illustrious teaching career. He didn't know quite how long she still had from this point. It could be decades, centuries even, he had no idea. But there were no other guardrails in her known timeline shielding her from that ever-encroaching ending.

He’d only just gotten her, really, their wedding still so close in the recent past for him. He’d barely started down their path together. Losing her was the last thing he wanted to think about. But right now, he used those despair-infused thoughts to fuel his commitment in the now. This was his first Christmas with his wife. He had her delectably naked in his arms. Parents downstairs or not, he was going to savor her as long as he could.

"Not yet. I need to worship you a bit more first." He slid further down the mattress. His fingers skated up her thighs, tracing intricate designs into her skin and he pressed a trail of light, barely-there kisses down her stomach. The spot just to the left of her belly button always made her wiggle delightfully with repressed giggles she refused to let fully loose. When his hands and mouth met at the divine spot between her legs, he took the barest of moments to slide his fingers through her folds, in awe at her slickness. "So wet for me, River. You're always positively dripping for me, honey."

He breathed in her scent deeply, inscribing her all the more deeply in his olfactory memory, wanting to keep this moment of her spread out before him in the guest bedroom of her parents house on Christmas in his memory banks  forever. It was certainly a memorable way to spend his first Christmas as a newly married man, despite the wrongness of it. When he flicked his tongue out to flick against her clit, the taste of her flared to life across his taste buds, electric and renewing, dousing him in a desire to devour her entirely.

Which is exactly what he set to work on doing. His lips and tongue and fingers worked her over, touching and stroking and sucking until she was on the very brink of release. Her finger carded through his hair and tugged harshly, desperate for more contact. She whimpered needily, muffling the louder cries threatening to escape her lips by clenching her teeth and then whispering foul words under her breath when she dared to open her mouth.

There was little the Doctor enjoyed more than bringing River to orgasm with his mouth. It was something he rather prided himself on, considering she enjoyed it quite as much as she did. But she had been right earlier. They _were_ rather limited on time. As much as he dreaded that unavoidable walk downstairs and the reactions his friends would have to him sneaking off with their daughter right before Christmas dinner, they would have to get around to it rather sooner than later. And if he brought her off right now, like this, he wouldn't have time to wind her back up again. And after this whole experience, he couldn't not have her, he couldn't not see this little interlude of theirs through to its inevitable conclusion.

When he removed his mouth from her, she cursed him in three different languages and he was sorely temped to shush her for fear of being overheard. He was more than a little afraid she would slap him, though, so he refrained. Instead, he retraced his original path down her body, only this time in reverse. That little spot next to her belly button, the soft skin of her upper stomach, the tiny indent in her sternum, each dusky nipple, the delicate ridge of her collar bones, and finally the juncture of her neck where he desperately tried but brilliantly failed to prevent himself from making a series of small nips across the sensitive skin. He only hoped he was soft enough to avoid leaving any mark. He didn't need images of Rory running him through with that sword of his distracting him during this next bit.

He must have been distracted by something, however, because when River’s patience ran out and she managed to swiftly flip them so that she was overtop of him and it was his back pressed into the mattress, he was taken by surprise. Not that it was an unpleasant surprise. He had a rather good view of his wife's body from this angle. 

"Don’t get me wrong, sweetie, you were wonderful. And there are plenty of other times I truly adore your attention to detail, But I estimate dinner will be finished in about nine and a half minutes, so we’re really on a tight schedule here. I don’t want to stretch their patience any more than that." Her fingers made quick work on removing his pants and trousers, pushing them off his hips and down his legs. She even paused ever-so-briefly to help him kick his boots from his feet. He thought that may be a bit of a waste seeing as he’d have to put them back on again in only a very few short minutes, but his aching, throbbing cock was finally free of its confines and reaching toward its intended destination with eagerness, and he really didn’t care at all about the hurried way they’d have to dress again. 

He’d almost been able to ignore his own desperation while he’d been focused on River’s pleasure, but now that the attention had returned to him a bit, it felt rather all-consuming. The relief he felt at being free from his restrictive trousers filled him with a pressing urgency. There was River, knees on either side of his hips, poised mere inches away from where he so desperately wanted her, and he wanted nothing more than to grab hold of her hips and pull her down onto him, to thrust into her fast and deep and not have to care about the sounds either of them made or who heard them.

He'd have to save that thought for when he got her alone in the TARDIS later on. He imagined she may want to stay and visit with her parents a while longer, what with being fresh out of prison, and he wasn't opposed to sticking around a while longer as well, if it meant being near her and his friends at the same time. But he would most assuredly need to drag her back to the TARDIS with its soundproof walls and utter privacy as soon as possible.

For now, he'd have to make due with slow and quiet. When River finally lowered her hips to take him inside her, the Doctor threw his head back and swore he saw stars on the ceiling. Real ones, not just those oddly-colored and-shaped lights you'd normally see in moments such as these. He held back his groan of pleasure as she dropped lower and lower, taking him fully inside her wet, clenching heat. It may be a ridiculous, overused phrase, but this moment, where the two of them joined fully into one, felt truly like coming home. Like he was where he was always meant to be.

Though he had been far from avoiding River since their impromptu wedding like he had been her parents and, well, everyone else in the known universe, none of their subsequent dates had felt quite like this. Even their wedding night, which he'd been rather proud of turning into a spectacularly romantic affair, hadn't been quite as blissful as this. Maybe it was the fact that he'd largely been alone for such a long time, outside of their brief date nights, and now looked at a future, however short-lived it might be, where he had River and her parents back in his life, his own little humany family to surround himself with. Or maybe it was the residual emotion from his earlier adventure, where a family had had their loved one return from certain death. Or maybe it was just the feeling of making love to his wife on their first Christmas together as a married couple (from his perspective at least). That wasn't something he'd had in almost more centuries than he could count. No matter the reason, the experience bordered on the divine and filled his chest with an inexplicable wave of emotion. He rather hoped he wouldn't do that happy crying thing again. He thought the bedroom would be a rather awkward place for that to happen.

River moved over him steadily, her hips powerful in their motions, knowing exactly how to move to get her desired results. She knew just how his body worked, just how to get it to work with her own physical intricacies. And it wasn't like the both of them hadn't already been incredibly worked up to begin with. Although it was for the best, with their remaining time dwindling down to a dangerously low number of minutes, when River started to clench rhythmically around him and make those tell-tale, staccato, keening grunts, he was almost disappointed. He didn't want the moment to end. But watching River fall apart was like watching the universe being born. Which he'd actually done, and honestly, it didn't hold a candle to coaxing River Song to a satisfying climax. He needed to find something else to compare the experience to. He might just make that his next traveling mission.

It wasn't a surprise when River swooped down and crushed her lips to his. As she'd once informed him when he was too young to know from experience, she was prone to screaming at the height of her pleasure. It was a moment he enjoyed, getting to see her completely undone and without any sort of mask or façade, where River Song was completely uninhibited and filled to the brim with pleasure, a pleasure that _he_ had inflicted on her. But tonight, she couldn't let loose that very vocal reflection of their coupling, so instead she settled for muffling the noise she couldn't let out loud into his mouth, plunging her teeth into his bottom lip to help control her involuntary shrieks. It  was only a few short moments later, as River was still shivering and gasping for breath through her continued movements over him, that the Doctor faced his own challenge in muffling his shouts and gasps of pleasure. His hips thrusted erratically and he buried his face in River's ample cleavage. When he finally spilled inside her with a cry of her name on his lips, he felt River's soft kiss against his sweat-slicked forehead.

They both stilled their bodies but made no move to leave the comfort of the other's embrace or the softness of the bed they lay in. The Doctor did, after a moment, pull River down next to him on the bed and pull her close, kissing her lazily, all energy in his body sapped from his bones. He knew they had to get up, had to rush to get dressed and make themselves presentable in a record amount of time or else risk the wrath of her parents storming through the bedroom door, but he couldn't bring himself to leave their little nest of post-coital utopia without pausing to express to River all the things he didn't trust himself to verbally articulate correctly with his brain still all jumbled into a pile of mush.

One thing he did want to ask bubbled to the front of his mind. "Are all our Christmases together like this?" he mumbled sleepily against her cheek.

River laughed and the sound was enough to spark some of the energy back into his body, as filled with joy and delight as it was. "Oh , sweetie, I forgot for a while there just how early on you still are."

"I am not young!" he protested hotly "I'm 1104! In no way does that constitute young. Not even in regards to us. I mean, we're married and everything! And it took 200 years to get to that point!

River laughed again, only the slightest trace of wistfulness coming through this time. "I didn't mean you were young. Not _too_ young in any case. Just early on. Which you are. How long ago was Area 52 for you? A year?

"A bit less," he admitted reluctantly, eyeing her warily for where she might be taking this train of thought.

"Less than a year. And for me, well, I wouldn't want to give anything away, but for me it's been much, much longer than that. You still have so much more to come." She took the hand he had rested on her hip and twined their fingers together. He took the opportunity to squeeze her hand in return. "As for what our usual Christmases are like, I think I'll let you live that one out for yourself. But I will say that the whole business of sneaking away from my parents to shag in secret does become a bit of a regular thing when we're around them. You end up getting used to it. Though they never quite do," she said with a bit of a laugh.

He couldn't help it. He laughed, a light feeling overtaking his body at the thought that moments like these, however fleeting their time together may end up being in the grand scheme of thing, would end of becoming a common recurrence. He thought he could get used to the daring and very bad habit of sneaking around behind Amy and Rory's back like she said. He wouldn't lie and say the risk of getting caught, of risking the wrath of Rory's sword or Amy's deadly glare and Scottish shriek, didn't add just a bit of excitement.

Unfortunately, it seemed that they had overstayed their welcome in the spare bedroom. Their absence was very obviously being noticed and no longer tolerated because at that moment, they heard the very distinctive thud of a broom handle being hit against the ceiling. Or rather the floor. And it was followed by a wave of Scottishness.

"YOU TWO, GET - DOWN - HERE - NOW!" Each word was followed by another hard thud. 'WE'VE WAITED FOR YOU LONG ENOUGH AND DON'T YOU THINK WE DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING UP THERE! POOR RORY'S FACE HAS BEEN PURPLE FOR HALF A BLOODY HOUR!"

They scrambled out of bed, reaching instantly for their discarded clothes, doing their best to dress quickly and straighten themselves out appropriately through the rush and haze of panic. But all the while, neither he nor River could avoid giggling absurdly for being scolded like children for sneaking biscuits out of the jar. 

With the bulk of their clothing on properly, the Doctor took to helping River fluff her hair out to a normal appearance, which she then reciprocated by helping him to ensure his bow tie got tied straight. That wasn't a detail he wanted to get wrong, after all. Fearing Amy coming to find them with that broom in her arsenal, the Doctor dragged River down the hallway and back down the stairs by the hand at a fast-paced sprint. She kept up with him perfectly, as always, until they reached the entranceway to the sitting room on their left, when she stopped short, nearly pulling his arm out of the socket when he tried to race on past.

"River, what are you doing?" he hissed urgently, a frightened grin on his face. "They're waiting-!"

He stopped when he saw River raise her finger to the ceiling. His gaze followed its direction until his eyes landed on the tiny plant hung over the doorway. He glanced fearfully at the nearby dining room, it's contents out of sight but most assuredly holding a pair of very irate Ponds. They shouldn't keep them waiting any longer, most assuredly not. But there was his wife standing beneath a very inviting sprig of mistletoe on Christmas evening, an altogether sexy and enticing smile playing across her face, and it's not like Amy and Rory hadn't waited this long already. What would a few more seconds do? Besides, they were the ones who put the blasted thing up. Why do that unless they wanted people to follow the well-known Earth custom of kissing beneath it? It would be rude to ignore such a tradition.

He gave a guilty little giggle and leaned in. His lips had barely grazed River's when he heard the sound of Rory's disgusted groan and Amy's impatient sigh from across the hall. Making the possibly dangerous choice to ignore them for a few more seconds, the Doctor continued to kiss River, who seemed equally unbothered by their interruption. Their kiss was chaste but enthusiastic, and if Amy an Rory weren't standing crossly only a few feet away, he would have allowed the kiss to go on forever.

"Really, you two can't keep your hands off each other for one night? It's Christmas for God's sake! Have some decency, will you?"

"Oh Dad, the fact that it's Christmas is part of what makes it so _very_ difficult," River said a moment later when they finally broke apart, her eyes never leaving the Doctor's giddy gaze as she shared her little quip with her father.

Amy sighed, resigned. "I'd say that I raised you better than this, but I really didn't. I just _had_ to encourage your shamelessness, didn't I?" She turned to Rory, patting him soothingly on the shoulder as she moved the two of them back into the dining room. "Come on, everyone, dinner is ready and you're all gonna sit down and eat it like civilized humans!" She paused for a second to think about what she said. "Whether you're actually human or not. I'll not have any loopholes ruining this meal, got that, you two?"

As Amy and Rory walked off, he knew that he and River faced mortal peril if they didn't follow immediately in their wake, but he couldn't help bending and kissing River one last time, hurried and grinning madly, overjoyed and filled to the brim with Christmas spirit. As River donned a matching grin and joined him in racing to catch up with her parents, the Doctor marveled at how he could have ever spent two centuries running from a future with her, or indeed, pretending to be dead rather than enjoying perfectly lovely, if rather dangerous, Christmas dinners with this family. His family, he reminded himself joyously.

As they all sat down to eat, he took a look at the little family they made up now. River was sat next to him, her cheeks a tiny bit flushed, whether from any sense  of embarrassment at all or the thrill of racing to dinner, he couldn't quite tell. Amy and Rory sat across from them, both obviously uncomfortable but also, somehow, quite clearly far less irritated than they were pretending to be. Their obvious shows of disgust were apparent, but no one had actually threatened to run him through with a sword or punched his arm into a permanent state of bruising. Instead, the four of them were sat down to dinner, lights hung and twinkling throughout the house, and snow falling lightly outside the window. Amy's water pistol lay on the table right in front of her, prepared for any other unsuspecting carolers who decided to grace her doorstep. No one was in any kind of danger that required him to go off and save the world, as so many Christmases did, and indeed the Christmas he just came from had.

As River's dazzling smile turned to him, laughing at something Amy had just said, quite possibly at his expense, the Doctor couldn't quite help thinking that this was the way Christmas should always be.


End file.
